Pale September
by onedracomalfoy
Summary: Hermione lies dying in a dungeon, right in front of his eyes. Implied DracoHermione. [oneshot]


**

* * *

**

**This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Lyrics credit goes to Fiona Apple.**

pale september

**I.** _Pale September, I wore the time like a dress that year. The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared, my heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within. But then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full and sank in the burrows of my keep._

When they shove her into the cell she stumbles, as if drunk, and collapses in front of him. Draco can't believe his eyes because, of all people, he believed she would be the last to let them catch her. She would have fought to the death rather then be locked in a cage. He stares at her absently, curled up as usual into his corner and watches as she takes in her surroundings.

The dungeon is a cliche, he thinks. A fucking cliche and you don't have to open your eyes to know what it looks like. But she opens her eyes anyway and she keeps them open, and she twists her head around so fast that he thinks it might come toppling off her neck. Her eyes swivel back and forth in the darkness, and she softly sniffs at the air, musky and damp and humid and smelling of something rotting. She crawls to the iron gate and although it has closed long ago she kicks and punches at it, thinks up some miracle spell that will let her escape but Draco has seen this all before. He has seen them come and he has seen them go, each the same as the one before. They are pushed inside and they wait for rescue or for the war to come to end.

The wait is futile. The war will not end. He has been waiting, and no one ever comes. Still, he is here, alive, but barely. He watches her as she desperately claws at the door. He imagines she's fighting so hard so she can get back to her beloved Weasel and Potty, the hero.

He almost laughs at how naturally the nicknames for his Hogwarts rivals come to his head. It's like he's back at school again, back at school where the war seems like some far-off event and becoming a Death-Eater is something he doesn't have to worry about just yet. He misses that.

Can't she see that they're not coming to save her? Doesn't she understand that there are more important things to get done?

Fucking cliche, he says. No different from the others, he says. No one is going to come to rescue a Mudblood in a cage. He laughs at her and she stops fighting, and he laughs harder because it feels so good to laugh and he tells her this is the funniest thing he's seen in months and that for his sake she should keep making a fool of herself.

She slides to the floor as his sharp laughter rings in her ears, echoing in the cool air in the darkness. He is aware that his laugh doesn't even sound like a laugh anymore and just an unfamiliar cackle and he sees that it frightens her by the look in her eyes.

They're all dead, she whispers to him. He falls silent at once. And she looks at the floor, hangs her head like she's tired, and he knows she must be. All of them, she continues. They attacked a group of muggles in broad daylight. I couldn't protect them. I couldn't save them.

Draco watches her as she mumbles about how she is to blame and can't help thinking how much of a bloody stereotype she is, the good witch fighting for justice who couldn't protect someone, and now she blames herself.

He tells her to shut her holier-than-thou gob before he kicks her teeth in and just be glad that she's alive right now. She looks at him and a flicker of anger shows itself in her brown eyes. She doesn't retaliate with a biting insult and Draco wishes she would because that would make him feel like they were at school again and he would have liked that.

**II.** _He goes along just as a water lily. Gentle on the surface of his thoughts, his body floats. Unweighed down by passion or intensity, yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts. And he finds a home in me, for what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap._

She goes over a week without eating anything. Draco watches her as she slowly wastes away, lying still on the cement floor, every now and then talking to Harry and Ron, who she imagines are sitting beside her, holding her hand.

The Death-Eaters give her water, dirty water, perhaps, but it's keeping her alive. As always, Draco becomes accustomed to having her in his cell with him, listening to her whispering to her best friends who are so far away and she tells the silence that she wishes they were here with her, holding her close and assuring her that everything will be alright.

Draco finds it sad and pathetic. He sees her rib-cage jutting out underneath her cotton jumper and she tells Harry and Ron about roast turkey, and smooth mashed potatoes, and savoury chocolate puddings and cakes and pastas. She tells them recipes and tastes and the way they feel going down her throat. She tells them of the way she can sometimes smell autumn and crisp pumpkin pie when she closes her eyes and imagines hard enough. The sound of the delicious foods makes Draco's stomach rumble but he is fed more than she is, so he is at least grateful not to be starving. He's not allowed to share his food with her, which he hates and loves at the same time, and someone moniters him as he rips apart the hard loaf of bread with his teeth, and he avoids staring into those sad, pleading eyes from across the cell.

He wants to live, and that is all that matters to him right now.

**III.** _And all my armour falling down in a pile at my feet, and my winter giving way to warm as I'm singing him to sleep. And all my armour falling down in a pile at my feet, and my winter giving way to warm as I'm singing him to sleep._

He knows she is dying after two weeks of no food. She is dying like the rest of them were dying, starving like the rest of them were starving, suffering like everybody was suffering. She lies on the cold bare floor, grime and dirt covering a better part of her body. Her hair is matted and tangled and bushy and he thinks she looks pitiful and wretched like a Mudblood should, and her grimy hands shake uncontrollably against the cold of the immanence of winter. She cries on the floor, tears leaving streaks of clean on her filthy cheeks. She cries to Ron and Harry and her parents and even god and she asks them to help her because she doesn't want to die. She cries that she wants to grow old and get married and have children, lots of children and she wants to pass away when she's old and asleep and _ready_.

She's not ready.

Draco comes out of his corner for the first time since she arrived and he picks her up off the floor, lifting her gently into his arms and her head falls gently onto his shoulder. She whispers _Harry_, and _Ron_, and puts her trembling arms around him but it doesn't matter because even before the war it's been so long since Draco was simply held. She sings gently into his ear, a lullaby she must have learned as a child and her voice is hoarse and weak but it comforts him and he lets her song fill him.

She dies sometime in the night. Or, at least, Draco thinks it's nighttime but he can never be sure because he actually lost track of time months ago. He is still holding her in his arms, close, her body as thin and frail as paper and he doesn't want them to take her away so he wraps his arms tighter around her, not wanting to break her but knowing she is already gone makes him less afraid.

He knew she wouldn't make it from the first moment she stepped into the cell but now, he misses her and the way her singing made him feel like he was standing in the middle of a summer rainstorm. Draco thinks it's all a cliche, a big fucking cliche and he's glad for this little change. He sits there rocking her for a blurred while until he hears a door open far off, and he places her gently on the floor, crawling back to his dark corner and watches as they drag her body effortlessly out of the cell. Cliche, he thinks.

As he's waiting for the next prisoner to arrive he delicately sings what he remembers of her lullaby, and when he imagines hard enough he can smell impossibly colourful autumn leaves on the stale air of his cage.

end


End file.
